In support of sustainable development, the United Nations (UN) launched its Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) with the aims of accelerating progress towards universal access to education, good quality learning and the fostering of global citizenship. This paper explores how and to what extent Stoic virtue ethics and critical Freirean ecopedagogies can advance the UN’s vision for progressive educational systems with transformative societal effects. We propose an integrated solution that provides ecopedagogical concepts a more robust philosophical foundation whilst also offering Stoicism additional tools to tackle 21st-century problems, such as climate change and environmental degradation. The result of the paper is the preliminary theoretical underpinnings of an educational framework that encompasses planetary-level concerns and offers a fuller expression of the terms “sustainable development” and “global citizen”.

Purpose: Advancements and innovation in engineering design are based on learning from previous failures but students are encouraged to “succeed” first time and hence can avoid learning from failure in practice. The purpose of this paper is to design and evaluate a curriculum to help engineering design students to learn from failure.Design/methodology/approach: A new curriculum design provided a case study for evaluating the effects of incorporating learning from failure within a civil engineering course. An analysis of the changes in course output was undertaken in relation to graduate destination data covering 2006 to 2016 and student satisfaction from 2012 to 2017 and a number of challenges and solutions for curriculum designers were identified.Findings: The design and delivery of an innovative curriculum, within typical constraints, can provide opportunities for students to develop resilience to failure as an integral part of their learning in order to think creatively and develop novel engineering solutions. The key issues identified were: the selection of appropriate teaching methods, creating an environment for exploratory learning, group and team assessments with competitive elements where practicable and providing students with many different pedagogical approaches to produce a quality learning experience.Originality/value: This case study demonstrates how to design and implement an innovative curriculum that can produce positive benefits of learning from failure. This model can be applied to other disciplines such as building surveying and construction management. This approach underpins the development of skills necessary in the educational experience to develop as a professional building pathologist.

Throughout history, technology has provided many and significant improvements to the way we live, but the current pace of development now often exceeds the ability for the full potential of any technological innovation to be explored and implemented before further innovations are introduced. This pace of change results both in missed opportunities for a technology in its ability to contribute to effective solutions in addressing issues such as reducing adverse environmental impact or improving the health of society. In considering the nature of technological innovation and development, the associated engineering design processes can themselves be characterized as being associated with a highly complex, iterative problem-solving exercises, involving the integration and synthesis of a wide range of technologies. This in turn requires the design team to manage trade-offs across a range of primary constraints, as for instance embodied energy in manufacturing, energy consumption in use, capital costs and operating and resource recovery costs. Further investigation into the complexity of societal issues and means for achieving a more effective and fuller utilization of both existing resources and technologies is necessary to place sustainability as a priority of the decision making process. To support discussion and provide context, three case studies are presented. The first case study examines a strategic framework adopting metrics aligned with environmental issues used as proxies for evaluating wellbeing and common good. The second case study examines the specific contribution of eHealth to wellbeing and the balance of technological, societal and political issues in determining outcomes. The third case study considers how technology might be embedded as part of the process of obtaining meta-data from within a small rural community to demonstrate the impact of mitigation strategies associated with the reduction of its carbon footprint, and hence on climate change. In doing so, the paper seeks to bring together issues surrounding environmental problems in relation to a technology driven engineering design process while positioning them in the context of social benefits arising from sustainable decision making.

Public realm urban regeneration projects aim to provide facilities for the common good such as improved road systems, public parks, museums and cultural institutions. Driven by political priorities, the expected benefits for society comprise of the proposed regeneration outcomes articulated in a masterplan vision. As a philosophical concept, common good in the context of urban regeneration is explored in this study to understand the expectations for major, long-term regeneration projects and the intended project objectives. In the approach to governance, there should be a relationship between monitoring indicators adopted by the regeneration project as part of the governance framework and their alignment with the common good. These concepts are analysed through a case study of the development and reporting of benchmark indicators established at the start of a major 20-year urban redevelopment in 2010. The monitoring and enhancement concept implemented required indicators to be developed and embedded in the regeneration process to, not only monitor, but also enhance sustainability. The longitudinal case study, at the interim point 10 years since the establishment of these indicators, will evaluate the sustainability of the urban regeneration and evaluate current evidence for the common good. The indicators were developed following the principles of a theme orientated framework in line with the UK and Scottish Government approach at that time. The process of indicator development was iterative, refined and finalised through working closely with local authority, Scottish Enterprise and partnership stakeholders (civic oriented organisations) to capture evidence of progress towards the masterplan vision. Ten years on, conclusions examine whether these indicators could be used a proxy for common good. The conclusion will identify the extent to which we would need to revise indicators to address any gaps to become a more accurate measure of common good.

Public realm urban regeneration projects aim to provide facilities for the common good such as improved road systems, public parks, museums and cultural institutions. Driven by political priorities, the expected benefits for society comprise of the proposed regeneration outcomes articulated in a masterplan vision. As a philosophical concept, common good in the context of urban regeneration is explored in this study to understand the expectations for major, long-term regeneration projects and the intended project objectives. In the approach to governance, there should be a relationship between monitoring indicators adopted by the regeneration project as part of the governance framework and their alignment with the common good. These concepts are analysed through a case study of the development and reporting of benchmark indicators established at the start of a major 20-year urban redevelopment in 2010. The monitoring and enhancement concept implemented required indicators to be developed and embedded in the regeneration process to, not only monitor, but also enhance sustainability. The longitudinal case study, at the interim point 10 years since the establishment of these indicators, will evaluate the sustainability of the urban regeneration and evaluate current evidence for the common good. The indicators were developed following the principles of a theme orientated framework in line with the UK and Scottish Government approach at that time. The process of indicator development was iterative, refined and finalised through working closely with local authority, Scottish Enterprise and partnership stakeholders (civic oriented organisations) to capture evidence of progress towards the masterplan vision. Ten years on, conclusions examine whether these indicators could be used a proxy for common good. The conclusion will identify the extent to which we would need to revise indicators to address any gaps to become a more accurate measure of common good.